What Blaine Hears
by jeviennis
Summary: If there were ever anything to break Blaine Anderson, this would be it.


What Blaine Hears

"Rachel thinks she saw Kurt with another guy."

* * *

><p>The first thing Blaine hears is the sound of his own heart shattering into a thousand tiny pieces and tinkling to the floor. His knees buckle where he's standing with one arm out, bracing himself against the door frame, but he doesn't bother trying to lower himself to the ground – he'll just wait until he falls down. The hand holding his phone goes numb, and Santana's voice grows fainter as it slips from his grasp and lands by his feet. Subconsciously, he moves it down to his chest where it presses down over his heart, hard enough to leave a bruise. His head spins and he can't even begin to gasp for air. Every other sound in the entire world is drowned out but the roaring of blood in his hears. He just stands there silently, the very definition of stasis.<p>

Wow, a part of Blaine thinks quietly, this is what it feels like to have your heart broken.

A tiny bit of him registers Santana shouting at him worriedly from his discarded mobile, but he can't bring himself to pick it up and hear the rest.

"Blaine? _Blaine? _Holy shit, I am going to fucking _kill _Hummel!"

Santana always had a soft spot for him. They'd been two people who'd always felt like outsiders, and somehow, they'd both taken comfort in each other, regardless of the fact that 'chalk and cheese' didn't even come close to summarising their personalities. Santana liked to party, Blaine liked to write songs. Santana liked sex, Blaine liked love.

Used to, anyway.

Because now, love seemed to be a cruel bitch that was hell bent on paying him back for whatever unknown insult he'd accidentally thrown at it. So Blaine just sits there, staring at the floor, eyes watering, not because he's crying, but because Blaine's forgotten how to blink, speak, breathe – he's forgotten how to do anything that isn't mentally curl up into the foetal position and imagine Kurt's face above him, his beautiful features twisted into something akin to contempt.

From the floor, Santana swears and hangs up, already grabbing her car keys.

* * *

><p>Before she can even knock at the door, Mrs Anderson opens it and ushers her inside, terror marring her delicate features.<p>

"What happened, Santana? I don't- I can't understand w- he's just_ sitting _there, staring at the carpet and he won't even _look _at me-"

Santana doesn't answer, she just runs up the stairs to Blaine's room.

The door's wide open, a phone lies on the floor and vase is shattered, presumably from when Blaine knocked it after his legs collapsed from underneath him. The boy in question looks just like that – a _boy _– more so than anyone Santana's ever seen, and it almost breaks her heart. He's leaning up against a deep red wall _– _the colour of love, she thinks humourlessly –just staring at his knees, which are tucked up by his chin. She crouches down and moves his head up and the sheer _defeat_ in his eyes almost knocks her back. This isn't Blaine sitting on the floor. This isn't the dork who sang a Britney song from on top of a bar one evening. This is a shell of Blaine Anderson. A hologram.

He looks up at her.

"I love him."

It's the first time he's spoken since he hit the ground.

* * *

><p>The second thing Blaine hears is his mother running up the stairs. It's probably because she heard him when his knees thud against the floor, he registers dully.<p>

"Blaine, honey, are you okay? Blaine, what are you doing on the fl- _Blainey_, why are you crying?"

Oh, he'd started crying, apparently.

He doesn't move his head to acknowledge her, doesn't attempt to answer any of the questions she threw at him. He just lays his head against the wall and cradles his shins to his chest, soaking his Dalton sweatpants with what were apparently tears, according to his mother.

Blaine wasn't sad right now.

He was empty.

* * *

><p>As soon as he breaks and says those three words, the metaphorical flood gates open and a <em>shitstorm <em>of sad rains down upon Blaine. It's as though uttering the words had reminded him that _oh yeah, _he was still madly in love with Kurt, more than anyone else in the world and, _oh yeah_, he'd been cheated on by the boy with the beautiful eyes and the supposedly beautiful soul. Blaine's heart isn't pumping anymore; it's being stabbed repeatedly with a pick axe – probably a pick axe on fire, or laced with poison – to the same rhythm that he'd once been beating to with so much vigour, so much promise, so much life.

Santana watches as, bit by bit, he lets himself fall.

Firstly, the bottom lip trembles. His eyes dart around the room, trying to settle on something, _anything_, that might give him the tiniest bit of light in what he's pretty sure is the darkest fucking abyss of all eternity. They settle on a picture that Mercedes took of him and Kurt slow dancing in some snow, wearing matching grins and gazing so fiercely at one another that to this day, Blaine still doesn't know why the flakes drifting around them weren't melting and falling as raindrops.

That picture doesn't help at all.

Next, he remembers how to breathe, and suddenly he's a man drowning in an ocean, trying to keep himself afloat. He starts gasping for air, his chest constricting further and further and somewhere, at the back of his brain, he notes that this is what the man on the hospital programme meant when he said 'hyperventilating'.

Then he's crying more – harder - sobs making him and shudder and pull himself in tighter, and he's trying to imagine that it's Kurt hugging him, whispering in his ear that it's okay, he didn't do it, Rachel was wrong, because he loves Blaine and he'd never do anything to hurt him, _ever_.

"No, no, it's not… she's wrong, she's wro-"

Santana can only hold Blaine's hand as he repeats the words over and over again like a mantra, and for the first time ever, she's _so_ scared for him, so scared for big strong Blaine who always saved everyone, who always rode in to save the day, ever the white knight.

She doesn't think she's ever seen his armour so cracked.

* * *

><p>The next day, Mrs Anderson gently wakes the two from where they'd both fallen asleep fitfully, leaning up against Blaine's wall and reminds them that it's Monday, that they've got school and Mr Schuester will wonder where they are if they don't go in. Santana makes to stand but Blaine remains on the floor, nodding at what his mother said but making no attempts to move. It's almost as though he's forgotten how to work his body. Santana looks down at Blaine and then back up to Mrs Anderson, and she looks so weary, so fragile, as though she were feeling all the things that Blaine was.<p>

That's a true mother, Santana thinks.

* * *

><p>The third thing that Blaine hears, properly, is his phone going off during Glee club. Somehow, Santana managed to pull him into school with quiet coaxing and murmured words of encouragement, and by shutting himself down completely, he's managed to last the day.<p>

And then life plays one more practical joke on him, just to see him break.

Kurt's ringtone plays over Mr Schuester's nonsensical drabble.

Santana tenses. Blaine's heart splits all over again.

Not now.

But out of force of habit, or instinct, or out of sheer desperation for some explanation, he picks up, and Kurt's words swarm him, warm and alive.

"_Hi, baby! Look, I know I'm calling early but my last class got cancelled, and I didn't know if you had Glee today or not, and I just really, _really_ wanted to talk to you."_

Blaine wants to believe him. He wants to so much.

"_Blaine, are you there? Sweetie, you picked up the phone, I know you're there! Blaine, are you okay? Blaine, please answer me, I'm getting worried now. Baby, what's wrong? _Blaine?"

Mr Schuester sees his eyes fill with tears, sees Santana try and reach for the phone clasped to his ear like a lifeline and quickly pulls Blaine up and into his office, away from prying eyes and whispering thoughts. With Kurt still on the line, he takes the phone and places it on the desk. He kneels down so that he's looking up into Blaine's face, where there is more agony etched across his features than should ever belong in a seventeen year old's heart, and puts two and two together.

His phone ringing. Anguish radiating from him in waves.

Kurt.

"Blaine, what happened?"

Before Blaine can even begin to formulate an answer, Santana launches herself through the door and picks up the phone.

"You _asshole_, Kurt Hummel! What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you understand what you've done? Do you have any fucking _clue _how Blaine has been feeling? Or do you just not give a shit?"

Oh, crap.

But as Mr Schue's about to pull her in, tell her that she can't just unleash the fury of Lima Heights on Blaine's boyfriend, Blaine does it for him.

"Santana, shut the _hell_ up, please!"

And then he's got a full blown teenage drama on his hands.

"Blaine, what the fuck? You spent last night either sobbing or practically _dead_, so do not tell me that I'm not allowed to kick the ass of the boy that did this to you!"

"No, you're not!"

"Why the _fuck_ not?"

"Because I'm still praying he didn't do it!"

Blaine's words hang in the air like a bad smell.

Santana opens her mouth to speak, only for her voice to fail her when she unclenches her fists and looks at him, so devastated and so, _so _broken, and she can't not give him this miniscule bit of hope. He has to have something to hold onto.

"_Blaine, tell me what's going on. What have I done? Blaine?"_

Kurt's been on the phone the whole time.

* * *

><p>The fourth thing Blaine hears is his own voice, cracking as he whispers.<p>

"Please tell me you didn't."

He sits in the front seat of his car, knees pulled up again, the phone balancing on his thighs as Kurt's voice, so melodic and perfect that he wants to cry again, comes to him from the loudspeaker.

"_Baby, I don't know what you're talking about."_

Blaine doesn't even want to say it, doesn't want to dare utter it aloud out of fear that it'll manifest itself and Kurt will confirm everything he wishes were untrue.

"You-"

"_I can't tell you if I did what you think I did if I don't know what it is, Blaine."_

Kurt chuckles breathily.

He tries again. Takes a deep breath and tries again.

"Is there someone else, Kurt?"

The filter switch in his brain is suddenly flipped and firmly stuck in the off position.

"_Please_, Kurt, tell me that Rachel was wrong or that she being a spiteful bitch, because I can't do this, I just _can't_. God, I love you so much, and I thought you loved me too, so _please_ let this be one big screw up and tell me that it's all okay, and that I'm still coming down for Easter, and that-"

His voice runs dry as he heaves in a great gulp of air, trying to steady himself. He don't think he's ever hurt this much before.

"Please tell me you still love me."

Silence.

He's wrong. _This_ is the most pain he's ever been in. The pick axe is back again, except it's not just stabbing, it's catching and pulling, twisting up his insides and ripping them apart with no mercy, no humanity, no kindness.

* * *

><p>Santana watches from the parking lot as Blaine cries down the phone, and while she's fully prepared to rip Kurt a fresh one if he's done so much as<em> looked <em>at someone else, she begs to whoever might hear her that she doesn't have to.

There's never been two people more perfect for each other.

* * *

><p>Mrs Anderson returns from work that evening, terrified by what she might find this time, where her son might be huddled this time, what he might have <em>done<em>.

He's in the same place as last night.

He's crying again.

Something inside her gives, and all of a sudden she sees her little boy with the crazy curls who would come running in and jump on her lap whenever one of the boys outside wouldn't let him play their latest game. The little boy who slept in between her and her husband for a month and woke up crying in the nights after they had to put the family dog, Barney, to sleep. The little boy who would sing himself nursery rhymes whenever he felt sad. The little boy who would smile-

Wait, what?

Blaine's smiling.

He turns his head towards her, half-sobbing and half-laughing as he holds the photo from the snow day in his hands.

"She was wrong."


End file.
